


Stomp!

by Bardic_Feline



Series: Curetown AU [2]
Category: Curetown AU - Fandom, Left 4 Dead, Respect A Woman
Genre: F/F, M/M, Swearing, tw: self harm mention, violance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 15:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2816375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bardic_Feline/pseuds/Bardic_Feline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of Juan's music buddies is putting on a performance in the Curetown square, and Juan decides to drag Sha out to watch her.  (It was totally for his own good. Totally.  Guy needs to get out more.)<br/>Really...when you put a cured witch, who can very easily be forced into a dangerous relapse state by the mere presence of even vaguely threatening survivors, into close proximity with a lot of survivors, who do not feel at all comfortable around said witch...what could possibly go wrong?...how about everything?</p><p>(Note: None of this is especially graphic, although there is a fair amount of gratuitous swearing.  There is violence, but none of it is particularly graphic...however, there are a couple of scenes a few chapters in that are a bit more unsettling. I will make a note at the start of the relevant chapters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which several missteps are made.

           “I want to go home.”

 

            Juan side-eyed Sha. “So what else is new?” He muttered.

 

            “There is absolutely nothing new about that.” Answered Sha.  “I never wanted to come out here in the first place.  It is too bright, too cold, and there are too many strangers, and yes I was aware that you were saying that rhetorically so please quit looking at me like I am mentally deficient.”

 

            “Then why did you answer as if…gah.” Juan scowled, cheeks flushed red. “I didn’t actually mean for you to…Oh whatever.  We’ve only been out here 5 minutes, so would you PLEASE just try and stick it out? You are never going to get better at being around other people if you don’t practice at it.”

 

            “I am still not entirely convinced that there is any wisdom in forcing myself to become accustomed to something I hate so much, especially given how high the risks are.”  Sha eyed a nearby group of survivors (who were noticeably trying to give the red-headed cured as wide a berth as possible). “I am also entirely certain that I am not wanted out here.”

 

            “See, THIS is what I'm talking about…how on earth do you expect to get better with a shitty attitude like that?”

 

            “Better.  You think me changing a fundamental part of my nature would make me ‘Better’.”

 

            “That's NOT what I mean and you know…oh whatever, we'll talk about this later.  The point is, the fresh air will do you some good, and you'll get a chance to hear one of my buddies play…”

 

            “Standing out in the street, in the middle of a crowd of people to whose very presence I am a danger, listening to a woman I do not know play a mandolin.   Yes, that sounds like a thing I would be interested in.”

 

            "Well, it's something I'm interested in!"

 

            "I fail to see why you could not have come alone, then. I am not so very helpless that I cannot manage a single evening by myself."

 

            "...okay, let's pretend for a second that leaving entirely you to your own devices for an entire evening isn't a terrible idea...yeah, I COULD conceivably have come here alone, HOWEVER I do not see why you should avoid at least TRYING stuff that I like to do, if only for the fact that I do shit that you like to do all the damn time."

 

            "...Would it not be more honest for you to simply say that you find me and my hobbies boring, and that you would rather go out and have fun on YOUR terms, but you would feel guilty just leaving me by myself?"

 

            Juan flushed.  "I would NEVER say anything like that!" He snapped.

 

            "Perhaps not out loud." Sha's face was unreadable. "Perhaps not in so many words."

 

            And that was how they ended up listening to the first half of Gloria's show in a stony silence.

           

              In truth, it could have been worse...Juan had had the sense to find a rather out of the way spot on the closed off street that served as the makeshift Performance space. In it, there was a kind of alcove created by a dilapidated awning and a boarded up doorway, so Sha was out of direct sunlight and had his back to something solid. 

 

As to the performance itself, Gloria's music was...well, _flawed_ , but by no means terrible. Her voice was good, anyway, and her mandolin playing was, as far as Sha could judge, quite skillful.

 

Moreover, she was a good performer, in as much as Sha could judge that. She was pretty and engaging, and perfectly at ease in front of an audience. 

 

Her writing on the other hand...she had a strong point of view, and a clear understand of song/narrative structure, but there was just something a bit too...precious? Pretentious?  Something that didn't quite fit the kind of stories she was trying to tell. (most of which, understandably, were about her experiences as a survivor.)

 

            Sha wanted to ask Juan about it. As much as the witch criticized his handler's own writing at home, Sha was more than willing to admit that Juan knew more about music than he ever would.  Juan would have the right words for describing just why Gloria's music wasn't quite working, for why it sounded so...garage band? No. Amateurish? Somewhat, maybe, but that didn't feel like the right thing either. 

 

            These thoughts were running through Sha's head with Gloria reached the end of her current number, and after taking a sip of water (during which the crowd...actually not a HUGE crowd, just big enough to make Sha uncomfortable...applauded politely), the girl announced her next piece. The witch winced.

           

            "Okay, this next one is brand new, and still kind of a work in progress, so I hope you'll all be patient with me and give it a shot." She laughed, a bright smile on her face, as she fiddled with the tuning knobs on her instrument. "It's...sort of an experiment for me, too...I wanted to try to see if I could write from the POV of..you know...one of THEM.  Cause it's an idea I've had stuck in my head for a while now, you know?  Anyway, the basic theme here is about loss...loss of memory, loss of humanity, lost pasts..."   

 

            "Oh, Dammit, I told her this one wasn't ready yet." Muttered Juan.

           

            "Is she seriously about to sing something from the point of view of an infected...?"

           

            Juan gritted his teeth. "Yes. Yes she is."

 

            "Mr. Juan...I am almost afraid to ask...but has this young woman ever spoken to anyone in the cured community...?"

 

            "What do you think?"

 

            She started singing.  Sha cringed involuntarily. "I am going to guess that the answer to that is 'no.'"

 

            "You are allowed to be more honest than that. She's a sweet kid, really, but...fuck, is it obvious she never expected a cured person to hear this. 'Loss' my ass...the theme of this song is 'I may have lost everything but thank god I'm not a damn zombie.'"

 

            "It IS a valid sentiment..." Sha said, hesitatingly, before snapping his jaw shut.  He'd been ABOUT to add that it also was a not-so-surprisingly common sentiment. The expression on Juan's face warned him against saying this.

           

            Really, this was one of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with Juan. It was almost as if his handler had this one huge willful blind spot when it came to Sha.  He seemed almost incapable or unwilling to acknowledge the simple fact that, no matter what they did, the ex-witch was ALWAYS going to be different; that most of the survivors were probably never going to really trust him or want him around for not entirely unreasonable reasons.

           

            The witch pondered this for the rest of Gloria's set, and was no nearer to finding an answer at the end as he was at the beginning. _At least the crowd's breaking up a bit._ He thought, as he watched the girl pack up her minimal equipment. 

           

            “Right, that was lovely, home now?” Sha said, turning to look at his handler.

 

            Juan shook his head, and grabbed Sha by the wrist. “Dude, no, we gotta go talk to her a bit!  I promised her we’d show up, and I wanna introduce you to her.”

 

            “Did you actually specifically mention that you were bringing ME, and if so, does Miss Gloria know anything about my condition?”

 

            “Well…not in so many words…”

 

            “She has no clue, does she.”

 

            “She knows I’m a volunteer helper, and she knows that I was planning on bringing a friend today….”

 

            “I fail to see how that would necessarily follow that she would conclude that you would be foolish enough to bring someone with MY condition out here.  I somehow doubt that your friend is going to be pleased when she finds out.”

 

            “Oh chill out and give the woman a chance. I'm sure she'll like you when she gets a chance to know you.”

 

            Sha sighed and let Juan drag him along. _Well, maybe he'll learn something from this._ He thought, internally wincing when the girl caught sight of them.

 

            “Juan! You made it.” The singer beamed…at least until her eyes settled on the cloaked red head standing next to her friend. “Is that…wait.” She peered, and her smile shrank further. “Juan, did you really bring your…I mean, this is your…?”

 

            “Gloria, this is  my FRIEND, Sha.  We’re PRETTY sure that’s his real first name, anyway…I mostly just call him Mage-y. Sha, this is Gloria.”

 

            “HIS…i…he’s a boy?!”

 

            “I am male, yes.” Answered Sha. “And yes…I do speak.”

 

            "...and you speak...very well!" she said, visibly struggling to smile.

 

            "...thank you, Miss Gloria?" Sha said, while thinking _Oh god, she's going to be one of THOSE survivors._ He'd come to expect certain reactions from the survivor side of the community, ranging from a certain kind of cautious indifference to outright hostility. But then there was the kind that...clearly didn't trust or like infected, would never voluntarily spend time with them, but when directly confronted with one, would go out of their ways to be nice. Because god forbid anyone think they weren't Good People.

 

            "Yeah! You totally sound like a normal...I mean you can hardly TELL...I mean..."

 

            "I sound just like a real person?" It came out as more of a challenge than he meant it to, and he almost immediately felt terrible when the girl turned bright red and started stammering apologies.

 

            "Hahaha, hey, don't give the lady a hard time, Mage-y." Laughed Juan, grabbing Sha by the shoulder and shaking him a touch harder than was strictly necessary.  "Sha's got a weird sense of humor, Gloria. Don't mind him."

 

            "Oh...? Hahaha, okay. Umm...SO, changing the subject, what did you guys think of my show?"

 

            Juan and Gloria fell to talking shop; after a few minutes, Sha stopped trying to feign interest in the topic. He had nothing to add, and he couldn't follow what either of the musicians were talking about.  Not that either of them really seemed to notice that he'd dropped out of the conversation. He wouldn't have been surprised at all if it turned out they'd forgotten Sha was there.

 

            (If that was the case, Sha could not even bring himself to blame Juan.  It made sense that someone as objectively handsome as his handler would be more interested in talking to the pretty little mandolin player than…well.)

 

            Sha tugged on the loose bandage thread with his teeth, and considered the merits of interrupting them to tell Juan that his nerves were starting to wear thin. Was it worth the very real possibility of just being told to tough it out for a bit longer? Or the even more real probability that he would then have to deal with his handler being in a bad mood once they got home? 

 

            Then again, maybe Juan was actually distracted enough that Sha could just sort of…slip away and go back to their shared apartment without him noticing. Was it worth trying and risking getting lectured at by an indignant Juan later?  Hmmm…

 

             Before he could finish that line of thinking, someone bumped into him hard enough to almost knock him off of his feet. Giving a surprised yelp, Sha flailed, tried to right himself, and overbalanced.  The law of averages being what they were, that was the exact moment a second person unknown bumped into him, knocking him over completely. Sheer instinct compelled the ex-infected to put his hands out to catch himself. 

 

              He hit the ground, landing with his full weight on his mutilated and already aching hands.

              Sha bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, but somehow managed to keep from yelling out.  He blinked tears out of his eyes. It was okay.  It was fine. No harm done.  No need to bother Juan with this if he hadn't noticed. Sha  could just wait until the worst of the stabbing pain had gone away, and then just carefully stand up and…

 

              A foot came down heavily on his right hand, and ground down for one agonizing second.  Not screaming was suddenly no longer a possibility for Sha.  The last thing he heard before the static filled his brain was the sound of Juan yelling.  Oh he did NOT sound happy. Sha wanted to apologize to him for…for…interrupting the…whatever it was that Sha was interrupting, but he couldn't get his mouth to form anything more coherent than a scream…

 

 

 

…………….

 

 

              In the back of his mind…in the part that wasn’t too busy being angry and panicked in equal parts…Juan was groaning in frustration. How was he supposed to get the skinny mage to leave the house EVER when shit like this happened?

 

              Ignoring Gloria's panicked sounding protests, Juan ran the short few feet towards the scene of the rapidly escalating accident, and all but LIFTED the idiot Survivor off of Sha’s hand. 

 

              “WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. YOU. COMPLETE. MORON.” He hissed.

 

              “Hey, watch it dude, chill!” sneered the stranger. “It was an accident. I didn’t see the skinny little wuss lying there.  Little freak shouldn’t be lying there if he doesn’t want anyone to accidentally step on him. Pfft…little freak shouldn’t be out here at all, really. Why do you care, anyway?”

 

               Juan bit back hard  on the urge to point out that he hadn’t actually accused the idiot of stomping Sha on purpose (yet), as he fumbled with the zipper of his jacket.  “Because I am the one who has to answer for him if he flips out and KILLS you, you COMPLETE asshole..!” 

 

              Sha was growling more than screaming now, his greenish eyes flashing yellow like a twin pair of caution lights.  A relapse was imminent, but there was still time…Juan finally got the zipper undone and whipped his jacket off.  “WELL? Why aren’t you RUNNING? Go now, before he actually DOES attack you!” 

 

              The idiot sneered.  “Pffft…what can that little wimp do to anyone?  He looks like a goddamned 12 year old GIRL….I’m not scared of some…” Juan never did find out what the idiot was going to say next.  That was when Sha, much faster than he looked like he should be able to, sprang to his feet with a wild screech of rage. 

 

              Fortunately for everyone involved (maybe) Juan managed to throw his jacket over Sha’s head and pin his skinny arms to his side in that split second before the mage actually moved to tear the jerk’s throat out.  The skinny little guy lunged so hard, that he almost managed to do it anyway, but Juan  was prepared for that.  He went boneless, quite deliberately allowing himself to be pulled over, landing right on top of his growling charge.  Juan then pinned the snarling relapsed witch to the ground, arms still wrapped tightly around his skinny form. 

 

               Juan looked up from the now thrashing mage he had pinned underneath him and gaped. “What the BLEEDING HELL ARE YOU DOING?” he hissed.   “I said RUN.”

 

               The rest of the remaining crowd had taken cover, but the idiot was still just STANDING there, mouth hanging open…eyes big and distinctly glassy looking…starting to shiver and the ground next to his feet to steam gently and _oh Hell oh HELL._ Sha was now honed in on the guy and was going to keep trying to attack him until he was dead or just down, and the idiot had frozen up in terror.

 

               Juan glared in sheer irritation, absentmindedly making little shooshing noises to the snarling, screeching creature in his arms.  (He would liked to have petted his back or something as well, but there’s only so much he could do right then…short of finding a way to grow a second pair of arms.)  God, it must have been the witch screech…that sound was enough to make anyone have paralyzing flashbacks, but honestly why did it take that much to make the guy register that there was REAL DANGER here? “Hey?  Hey?  FOCUS! Don’t just stand there, I can’t hold him forever and he WILL chase you. COME BACK TO THE PRESENT, ACTUAL DEADLY DANGER IN FRONT OF YOU RIGHT NOW.”

 

              The idiot whimpered in response and didn’t move.

 

              “ARRGGH YOU WASTE OF…FRIG FRIG FRIG” Juan hiss-yelled as Sha tensed up and made a fresh attempt at lunging free, nearly dislodging him in the process. “Shh shh shh shh…calm down, Mage-y, if you can hear me at all, please please don’t fight me on this…” He murmered this kind of soothing nonsense without really listening to his own words as he frantically tried to work out a solution.  The guy wasn’t going anywhere now, he’d gone full on deer-in-headlights.  Not that it would do any good at this point…if Sha got loose, he would instinctively track his target down until something forced him into retreat mode. The only thing that would do that would be if said target was dead or at least down… _oh wait, duh._

 

              “YOU! IDIOT!  DO EXACTLY WHAT I SAY AND THIS WILL ALL END.” 

 

              The idiot whimpered again, dark stains appearing on his pant legs. Well, that was probably as much of an acknowledgement as Juan was going to get…

 

              “GET DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW AND LIE PERFECTLY STILL.”

 

              “…hu…huh?”

 

              “I MEAN IT! ON THE GROUND! YOU NEED TO PLAY DEAD. “

 

              “bu…but…how…”

 

               “JUST FUCKIN WELL DO IT, OR I SWEAR I WILL LET HIM GO AND CALL YOUR RESULTING DEATH A RANDOM ACT OF GOD.”

 

               Finally, something Juan said actually sunk into the idiot's addled brain, and he flopped to the ground in a remarkably good imitation of a dead fish. (Well…either that or he fainted. Same end result, really.)

 

               There was a tense moment in which Juan wondered if his plan had really worked. Would it make a difference if the mage couldn't SEE his target go down? Then Sha abruptly stopped struggling, and the howling growls ceased, and he KNEW it had worked. He sighed and allowed himself to relax a little…

 

               Seconds later, the stars had faded from his vision, and he found himself staring up in the now rather ashen face of Gloria.  “What…?” He mumbled, and winced.  His lower jaw was throbbing with pain.

 

              “Umm…near as I can tell, that little witch of yours kind of…bucked, I guess? While you were still holding him, and he kind of head-butted you in the mouth.  And then he ran off sobbing. Are you…?”

 

              “Wha...no one stopped him?!”

 

              "Stop a freaking...relapsed witch from running off? Hell NO. NO. God, not…not everyone is as crazy as you.” Snapped Gloria.  “Will you please forget the stupid witch for two seconds and just…”

 

               “Nope. Can’t.”  Juan sat up.  “Got to track him down now, s’my job.”

 

               “Nobody was hurt by your little pet while you were down, thanks for asking.” Snapped Gloria.  “And you have a fat lip. That’s what that THING you like so much did to you.”

 

               “That’s nice.  Which way did HE go?”

 

               “Why don’t you take a look and work it out on your own? IT left a trail, after all.”

 

               “What…?” Juan looked blankly in the direction  she was pointing.  And then swore loudly and pushed himself to his feet.  Yep…there was a trail alright, and a disturbingly clear one at that.

 

               “Shiiiiiiiitt…shit shit shit that is a LOT of blood how did I not notice that…Oh god, his stitches probably all split FUCK...sorry, I REALLY gotta go after him…”

 

               “Seriously?” She grabbed his arm. “Are you seriously out of your god damned MIND? Look I know you have some kind of weird savior streak or something, and it really IS very noble of you to try and help that THING but..."

 

               Juan rounded on the girl.  “ _Gloria_. “ He all but snarled at her. 

 

               She blinked, and stammered. “y…yeah?”

 

               “Let.” He said, tensing his bicep, forcing her to loosen her grip. “Go.” He said, leaning in close enough to touch noses with the wide eyed girl. “Of my Fucking ARM, you pretentious little HACK.”

 

               Gloria pulled away from him like she’d been scalded.  “Wh…” she stammered, “What did you just…”

 

               “You heard me. And for the record…that ‘THING’ has a GODDAMNED NAME. HIS name is Sha.” Juan turned and stomped off, radiating self righteous fury.  Behind him, he heard Gloria, hesitatingly at first, and then more and more loudly and surely, tell him PRECISELY what he could go off and do with himself.  He ignored it and kept walking. 

 

..........

_End of Chapter notes/thoughts:  I cannot believe how long I've been pecking away at this. I also can't believe I ever thought this was going to be a short one-shot._

_I don't know if this was at all obvious, but Sha is...extremely insecure about his own appearance.  (the fact that he still looks like a zombie, somewhat, is covered in scars, and has mutilated hands doesn't help much.) So, while I didn't directly come out and say, in the text, that part of Sha's issues with Gloria had to do with the fact that she made him feel like he wasn't pretty enough...she was totally making him feel like he wasn't pretty enough. :B_

_Gloria is not meant to be a bad person, by any stretch of the imagination.  I also felt like her reactions, under the circumstances, were pretty understandable. (She is a survivor, so she's probably encountered more than one fully infected witch.  Seeing Sha like that had to have brought up some bad things for her, and everyone else who was unfortunate enough to witness it.)  I feel a little guilty for not fleshing her out a bit more, tbh, even though he entire purpose for being there was so Juan could have a concrete reason for dragging Sha out of the house.  I may have to do more with her in a later fic._

_The nameless jerk who stomped on Sha, however...unless someone else wants to take on the task of fleshing him out a LOT more, I have no intention of bringing back.  Because he's a jerk._


	2. In which negations are made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juan is unable to locate his relapsed charge on his own, so he is forced to do the unthinkable: ask his Ex-girlfriend's girlfriend for help. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Sha comes to...
> 
> (TW: Self Harm mention, among other things. Sha is very NOT in a good state of mind in this chapter. Again, like most of the violence in this, I don't believe it is TERRIBLY graphic, but...just letting you know it's there.)

 

Roughly half an hour later, Juan was at a total loss.  The trail of blood drops, which had started out so clear and strong in the town square, had gradually petered out to nothing, and what was worse it vanished  at a branching intersection.  Off the main roads, the Curetown district turned into a honeycombed mass of one way roads, cut-throughs, and side streets, and between the buildings (or the torn up remains of buildings) was any number of places that would look like ideal bolt-holes for a startled witch. 

 

What made it even worse was that even if Sha did come to ground anywhere close by, there was no guarantee that Juan would be able to find him.  Past experience with the ex-infected had taught the musician that, following a significant relapse, Sha usually just passed out from sheer exhaustion not long after hiding.  This effectively ruled out wandering around and listening for tell-tale sobbing noises.

 

“Dammit, Mage-y…” Juan muttered, hugging himself as he shivered and quietly wished he’d thought to wear something other than a thin t-shirt under his jacket. “where did you go?”

 

A high pitched, hysterical sounding laugh split the air, and Juan jumped, hand going automatically for a weapon he wasn’t carrying. Crap, not here, not now…

 

“Hi Juan!”

 

He relaxed a bit.  “Oh, it’s just you.” He said, turning to face the hunched over blonde girl. “Don’t scare me like that, Jockey! I thought for a second…well, never mind what I thought.”

 

She cackled again, giving him a broad, beaming, lipless grin. “Hee hee…sorry…I DID try to get your attention, but you were kind of…not there.  You should really be more careful.  Hey, what happened to your face?  And where’s Sha-Mage-y?”

 

“Well…about that…”  He told her, briefly, what had happened, omitting the details about what he’d been up to exactly when Sha had been knocked over.  If Jockey noticed that, she was nice enough not to comment.  She also, to his eternal gratitude, did not ask him why he’d thought it was a good idea to bring Sha to something like a music event where he was sure to be surrounded by survivors..  (She DID wistfully remark that she wished she could have gone to listen to the music too.) But mostly, she just listened quietly, save for the occasional noise of sympathy or involuntary laugh.

 

“Oh no!” she said when he was finished.  “That’s terrible! Poor Sha-Mage-y….do you need help finding him?” She edged up closer to him.

 

“Ummm…” Juan edged back. “That’s okay, sweetness, you really don’t have to…”

 

“Oh, but I want to!”  interrupted Jockey, moving closer again and (most likely involuntarily) plucking at his pants legs with her long, spidery fingers.  “Sha-Mage-y’s hurt, and you shouldn’t have to look for him all by yourself.  We gotta look out for each other…”

 

“J-girl, c’mmon…” he gently fended off her trembling hands. “I really…really DO appreciate the offer, really, but…I honestly don’t even know where to begin looking, and…umm…” he searched for a polite way to say that she would be more of a hindrance than a help.  She wouldn’t MEAN to, of course, and Juan couldn’t bring himself to hold it against her, and he REALLY did not want to hurt her feelings…hell he was already feeling guilty enough for having unloaded on Gloria earlier.

 

‘ _Even if she DID kinda deserve it for the way she was talking about Mage-y.’_ He told himself stubbornly.

 

“It’ll be fun!” Jockey obliviously continued, now trying to get her foot up into his belt-loop.  “And…and maybe I could ride on your shoulders…get a better view for looking?”

 

“Yeah, no, that’s not going to happen.” He said, pushing her off, and putting both hands firmly on her thin shoulders.  “I need to find Sha as quickly as possible, and I can’t do that so well if I have to worry about you trying to steer me into things.”

 

“Oh….”

 

“Hey, hey, don’t look like that.” He said quickly.  “You know it’s not because I don’t like having you around, right? And it’s not that I don’t think you can be helpful, it’s just that there really isn’t much you can do right NOW…” he paused, struck by a sudden thought. “but maybe…do you think one of your friends could help?  Like Charger? Charger is good at tracking, isn’t she? And Mage-y likes her…she could help keep him calm if he needs it.”

 

“Sorry…Charger is busy today.  She has something to do with Angie Mousey in town…something to do with Ash, I think?” Jockey looked thoughtful for a moment, and then brightened up.  “But you know who you should ask?  Hunter!”

 

“Oh no…”

 

“Hahahaha no really!  She’s a natural at tracking, and she’s really good at finding lost witches.  I’ve seen her do it.  She and Ray practice doing it with Warlock all the time.”

 

Juan frowned.  He’d met Hunter’s friend, Ray, a couple of times.  A tough, crooked-nosed, hoodie wearing skinhead who was, if anything, even more of a thug than Hunter was.  And as bad as Hunter was on her own, she was infinitely worse when around her parkour buddy.

 

“Oh god.” He muttered. “So, when you say they ‘practice finding lost witches’ with Warlock, I can only assume you mean they startle the poor guy on purpose and compete to see who can find him faster…”

 

“…uhh…well, the point is, she’s really good at finding stuff! And people! She usually wins when she and Ray…umm. Compete.  And that’s why we should go and ask her to help! And I know she’s not doing anything tonight so she should be at home.”

 

“J-girl…you…look, I’m pretty sure Hunter hates me, so…”

 

“Oh, come on, haha, don’t be silly, Hunter doesn’t hate anyone! Look, I’ll help you ask her, I’m sure she’ll help once she knows how important it is!”  She grabbed him by the hand, and half-lead, half dragged him in the direction of her shared apartment.  “And maybe…maybe you can give me a piggy-back ride on the way…?”

 

 

……….

 

“Dude, why the fuck would I help you with anything? I hate you.”

 

“…wow. Somehow I didn’t expect you to be so blunt about it. I mean, the fact that you are making me stand out here on the front steps instead of letting me inside…a fact that would bother me less if it weren’t getting increasingly cold out here and my jacket kinda ran off with my witch…I mean, that was a pretty good tip-off, but still, you just coming out and SAYING it like that…”

 

Hunter snorted and continued to lounge in the entry way to the dilapidated apartment building.  “Deal with it.   And I still don’t see why I should help you with anything.”

 

“She doesn’t really mean that!”  said Jockey in a rather frantic sounding voice.     “You don’t really mean that, do you, Hunter?”

 

Hunter looked like she meant every single word as far as Juan could tell. He sighed, reaching over to give Jockey a pat on the shoulder (which was as much to reassure her as it was to impede her renewed efforts to climb him), as he struggled to think of a way to convince the blind traceuse. “Well…technically speaking, it really is more for Mage-y’s sake than mine.  I mean...(Jockey, no, down girl) I know you two aren’t best friends or anything, but come on, I mean…”

 

“Hah. ‘solidarity among cured?’ You seriously going to try and argue that bullcrap with me?  Anyway, last time I checked, he’s YOUR responsibility.  Don’t even try and get out of that, you’re the one who went and volunteered to help the guy; it ain’t MY job to fix things if you can’t do your job properly.”

 

“He’s out there, and he’s hurt, and probably completely freaked out! For pity’s sake, someone actually ATTACKED him, and now he might be in MAJOR trouble, does that seriously count for nothing to you?”  This was the wrong tact to take, and Juan knew it, but he was frankly a bit stunned at just how callous Hunter was being.  “I mean, it’s ME you have an entirely misplaced hatred for, why take it out on HIM? (Jockey, seriously, stop.)”

 

“Your fault he was out where he COULD get stomped on by some random asshole; you shoulda been keeping a better eye on him.  And it's STILL not my job to fix your mistakes, dude.”

 

“But Hunter…”

 

“Jockey, I love you, but seriously sis, stay out of this.” Hunter scowled. “Dude, not cool getting her to try and manipulate me like this.”

 

Juan’s jaw dropped.  “I didn’t…what…it was HER idea for me to ask you! (Jockey, sweetie, PLEASE)”

 

Next to him, Jockey backed away, pouting a little.

 

Hunter just snorted.  “Whatever. I’m going.  Have fun finding your witch.”

 

“WAIT!” Juan jumped forward and grabbed the back of the athletic girl’s hoodie, desperate to keep her from retreating inside. “Please…I just…please.  I would not be asking you this at all if I weren’t desperate, you understand that right? Just…what do I have to do to get you to reconsider?  I’ll…I’ll do anything you ask.  Anything you want. Just PLEASE don’t just walk off.”

 

“Get your hands off me.” She growled.  “NOW.”

 

“Or what? You’ll beat me up?  FINE, beat me up if  you think I deserve it….”

 

“Don’t tempt me, dude.  You think I’m fucking around here?”

 

 “BUT before you do that, PLEASE hear me out, okay? Think about it…ANYTHING YOU WANT. And if my putting myself on YOUR tender mercies like that doesn’t tell you how freakishly serious I am about all of this, then I really don’t know what else to say.”

Hunter actually stopped trying to pull away then, so Juan relaxed his grip. “Hmmm…anything I want huh? Really? Anything I ask for at all? Well…”

 

“BE FRIENDS!” cackled Jockey, somehow launching herself onto Juan’s back and forcing the surprised musician to stumble forward, right into the equally surprised Hunter.  “YOU TWO ARE BOTH MY FRIENDS SO YOU SHOULD BE FRIENDS!”

 

“JOCKEY, NO! BAD!”

 

“GAAH! BOTH OF YOU GET OFF OF ME, NOW!”

 

“COME ON GUYS, GROUP HUG!”

 

………….

**Meanwhile, several blocks away**

 

‘ _My hands hurt_.’

 

That was Sha’s first conscious thought. In typical Sha-fashion, it was a major understatement. His hands always hurt, to one degree or another, these days;  mostly, he had learned to live with it as sort of a constant  background ache.  But right now, his hands were a pulsing, searing, all consuming throb, that, for the moment, filled his world from edge to edge.  He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, in a way that didn’t send fresh sharp, electric shocks of agony up and down his arms.  For several, long, confused moments, the only real thing was his hands; nothing else mattered, nothing else existed. 

 

Some time passed before the second thought was finally able to work its way into his brain.

 

‘ _Where am I_?’

He knew, without looking, that it was an unfamiliar place…it smelled and felt wrong. 

 

(Though there was one…no, two, disturbingly familiar smells surrounding him. One was the sharp coppery smell of relatively fresh blood, but the other…he couldn’t quite place the other, and it seemed overwhelmingly important that he find out why he recognized it, and why it was making the hot, tight, knot of unease in the pit of his stomach grow worse and worse…)

 

This thought was closely followed by  ‘ _What have I been doing_?’; a thought that, even in his current condition, he was aware that he’d been having all too frequently these days.  (The sour feeling in his stomach grew.)  A blank section in his memory…lost sections of time…usually only meant one thing, and behind the pain in his hands, he was slowly becoming aware of how raw his eyes and throat felt.  

 

He’d been crying again, wildly and uncontrollably, for a considerable amount of time.  He couldn’t remember doing this at ALL, but he knew how it felt when he had.  

 

The next thought was ‘ _Why can’t I see anything_?’.  That one, at least, had an easy answer….at least, as soon as he worked up the energy to attempt to move. Moving was the hard part, because he was completely stiff. Just how long had he been lying …where was he?  He was sprawled on a cold, hard surface, he knew that much.  A not particularly CLEAN surface at that, but that told him almost nothing. Dirty was the ground state of being for most of Curetown. But finally, after much effort and concentration, he was finally able to shift himself enough to discover that he had…something…some kind of cloth…loosely wrapped around his face.  Whatever it was, it was the source of the familiar yet oddly un-placeable and worrisome smell. 

 

Several long minutes of focused, Herculean effort later, he finally managed to to sit up and pull the cloth off of his face.  He looked around.

 

He STILL didn’t know where he was, but now he knew he was in a small, closed-off alleyway, curled up in a pile of trash.  In an odd sort of way, this was a small comfort. In full on relapse mode, he knew all too well, witches tended to head for whatever seemed to be the most safe, secluded, concealed place they could find. They weren’t always the  BEST judges of safety when it came to finding these places.

 

(This is why so many non-cured witches seem to end up in relatively unprotected places…like the middle of narrow but closed in passageways, the shadows of parked cars which so frequently proved to have active and armed alarm systems, on the top of stairways…many a survivor has tripped over an unsuspecting witch because the pitiful creatures had misjudged how safe their hiding place was.)

 

It was a small, cold comfort to know that he managed to end up somewhere where he was unlikely to be found by someone unfriendly.   On the other hand, this would make it a lot harder for him to be found by a FRIENDLY someone. And it gave him no clues in terms of telling him what he’d been up to during that lost space of time.

 

(Well, some of it he could guess at, but the most important details…he was scared to think about those details.)

 

In the back of his mind, he knew that, as much as he didn’t want to think about it, it was really really important that he find out what had happened. There was something…he didn’t know what…something vitally important he needed to know, and was nagging at him like a sore tooth.

 

Finally, he looked down and saw what he was holding in his hands.

 

Five minutes later, the sharp pain in his chest reminded him that he still needed to breathe; whether he WANTED to was another matter entirely. But now he knew why that smell had been so naggingly familiar.  Now if only he knew for sure why…if only he knew if he WANTED to know for sure…why he had Juan’s jacket, and why it was covered with blood. 

 

“What….did I do…?” he whispered.

 

He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry.  His hands shook as he clutched the stained cloth tighter and tighter.  He tried to think, but his mind felt detached…untethered…from the rest of him somehow. Nothing felt real or fully present, not the cold ground underneath him, not the steadily worsening pain in his hands, not even the feel of his own teeth as he bit down onto the soft pad of flesh between the metacarpals of his thumb (what was left of it) and pointer finger of his right hand.  He tasted copper and dirt.

 

(In the back of his mind, the small part that could still think rationally, he knew he shouldn’t be biting himself like that.  But who was going to stop him from doing it now?)

 

As his vision went blurry, it seemed to his numbing brain, that the reddish stains on the blue cloth were slowly growing bigger…but surely he was only imagining that. 

……………………..

 

While all of this was still happening, Juan was busy dealing with a different sort of crisis.   

 

After he and Hunter had finally managed to untangle themselves from each other, and had banished a devastatingly sorry looking Jockey to the inside of the apartment, they had gotten back to the most important point of their discussion: What WOULD it take to make Hunter agree to help find Sha?

 

Unfortunately for Juan…

 

“Anything I want, huh?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Anything at all?”

 

“…yes…?”

 

“Fine.” She gave him a rather tight, and disturbingly triumphant smile. “This is what I want you to do: I want you to take back every shitty thing you have EVER said about Smoker, and admit that everything that went wrong between you two was entirely your fault.  I want you to admit that she didn’t do anything bad back then. And you gotta sound like you mean it.”

 

“…I…uh…”

 

“And I want you to do it, right here, right now. Those are my terms. Take them, or find your little witchy friend by your damn self.”

 

Juan opened his mouth soundlessly, and gaped as he tried to remember how to form coherent words.  Somehow, he’d been expecting for Hunter to make a more…well..selfish request. Or to take him up on his offer to beat the crap out of him.  He’d been bracing to be punched.

 

He WISHED she had just punched him.  It couldn’t have possibly hurt more than this.

 

“Aah….” He said.

 

Hunter stared at him sightlessly, and crossed her arms.

 

“Well…”

 

Hunter leaned forward slightly.

 

“Umm…baah…err…”

 

Behind Hunter, the front door opened slightly, and a still very chastened looking Jockey peered out.  The blind girl continued to stare sightlessly at Juan.

 

“I…me and Smoker...I mean…umm…Smoker and I…um…”  Inwardly, he was smacking himself.

 

‘ _Say something you IDIOT.  This is for Mage-y.  Think of him, he’s out there, and hurt and it’s your f…your responsibility to find him. And all you need to do right now is LIE._ ‘

 

He stammered again, and Hunter started to tap her foot.

 

‘ _Come ON, self, you're losing her! Tell her what she wants to hear! Come ON, it’s not THAT hard. Hell, you KNOW you fucked up, too, in that Smoker thing, and you know it wasn’t all her that made shit go wrong. What does it hurt, really, for Hunter to go on believing that her girlfriend is entirely blameless there; it’s not like these women could possibly think any less of you._ ’

 

Hunter cleared her throat meaningfully.  Behind her, Jockey whimpered.

 

‘ _Oh come on.  Just do it. Just LIE.  Just frigging tell a stupid comforting lie for HIS sake. Your stupid ego can take a hit if it means finding him before anything else can go wrong._ ’

 

Juan opened his mouth again and stammered.  “We…um..I…I…but…you don’t…but she…she…”

 

‘ _But that’s wrong. That’s not what I know. That’s not what I believe._ ’

 

“Well?” said Hunter.

 

“…I...” his shoulders slumped.  “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.  Not and mean it.”

 

Jockey looked devastated, and Hunter…Hunter was almost unreadable. “Hmmph.” She snorted. “Figures.”

 

He felt sick. “…please. Please.  Ask for something else.   ANYTHING else. I’m sorry, but I…I just can’t do that.”

 

“Hah. You already SAID you would do ANYTHING, and you just proved that you didn’t really mean THAT…”

 

“I DID mean it, I just…I didn’t think you would ASK me for something like that..”

 

“Whatever, man.  I’ve got nothing that says you won’t try and weasel out of anything else.”

 

Juan started to say something else…one more plea, one more argument, one more call for patience, for mercy, for understanding…and then stopped and shook his head.  He was cold, he was physically and emotionally exhausted, and he wasn’t one step closer to solving his original problem.  And this was clearly a complete waste of his time.

 

“…fine. Fine.  You win.  I’ll stop bothering you now.  This day was just one disaster after another and now…fuck. “ 

 

He started to trudge away, mentally kicking himself as he went.   Behind him, he heard Jockey step outside again.  Absently, he listened as she said something to Hunter…he didn’t catch most of it, but part of it sounded like “please…please…Sha’s my friend, too…”

 

He put his head down and tried to regroup.  What was he going to do now…?

 

Juan was so busy trying to come up with a new strategy, that he actually missed Hunter running to catch up with him, moving in a way that would make you forget that she couldn’t see, and standing right in his path. He almost walked into her.

 

“Jesus fuck…!”  he jumped back. “Aaargh…I told you already, you MADE you’re point, I’m a rotten asshole who can’t stick to a deal or do his job properly, now if you’ll…”

 

“ANYTHING else I want?” She interrupted.  “Really?”

 

“That’s…what I said? But…you…”

 

“Anything at all?  Anything I ask for?”

 

“Well….yeah, but…”

 

“You are going to owe me ONE BIG FAVOR, and you will pay up when I decide what that favor is.  Whenever I decide what that is.  Even if it’s inconvenient or painful or damn near impossible. Even if you don’t want to do it. No backing out this time, or you WILL fucking pay for it.  AND you will agree to these terms RIGHT here, RIGHT now, or no deal, got it?”

 

“You mean…you’ll help…?” 

 

“Do you agree to my terms, yes or no?  Answer, or I walk!”

 

“I…YES. Yes, I agree, I agree! One Big Favor, whatever you want, whenever you want it, no backing out no matter what, yes, I’ll do it.   I am SO going to regret this, but YES.”

 

She spat into her hand and held it out.

 

“…oh god, there are people who still DO this…?” 

 

She growled at him.

 

“Aarggh…okay hold up hold up…”  trying not to think too hard about what he was doing, he spat into his own hand and held it out.

 

They shook on it.

 

“guuuh…I guess I should be lucky you didn’t want to do that with blood…” He muttered, resisting the urge to wipe his hands off on his pants.  He didn’t want to risk pissing her off and making her change her mind again…

 

“Don’t push your luck, bucko.  Now where did you last see him?  And do you have anything I can use to track him with?”

 

“He left an incomplete blood trail…will that work?” 

 

“His blood?”

 

“Oh yeah, no question.  He didn’t lay on a hand on anyone else, and all he managed to give me was a fat lip.”

 

“So yeah…unless someone washed it away, it should probably work. Come on.” 

 

“Hey guys, wait!” 

 

“Jockey…” groaned Juan, not wanting to have this argument again.

 

“Seriously, sis, not right now…I wanna get this done as fast as possible…”

 

“No, no, I won’t try to come with, I understand, haaha. But….but I thought you could use a sweater or something, Juan…”

 

Judging from the pink color, it was HER sweater.  “Oh, sweetie, I can’t…”

 

“Take it, haha, you’re freezing! Sides…if this is all I can do to help, than…”

 

“Jockey, you’ve helped a lot, seriously.  And I owe you, too.” 

 

“Awww…still, take it anyway.” She smiled and shoved the sweater into his hands. She giggled as she watched him pull it on; he was broader through the chest and shoulders than her, so it was sadly stretched, but it worked.

 

“You two done over there?” Hunter yelled.

 

“Just another moment!” laughed Jockey.  “Hey, I just thought of something else…want me to run over and tell Eli about this?  I bet he could fix up Sha’s hand and do the bandage change…”

 

“Oh that’s really not…”

 

“It’ll be no problem at all, haha.  Eli does stuff like this for us all the time! Anyway, it’ll spare you a late night trip to the clinic, and I know you weren’t looking forward to that…”

 

“Jockey…but…I have your sweater, won’t you be…”

 

“I have a backup inside, haha. I can grab it in a second! Please, stop arguing and let me help okay?”

 

“Jockey…thanks. I mean it.”  He smiled at her, and gave her a quick hug.  “Same offer extends to you as I gave Hunter…anything you want.” 

 

“Anything, huh?”  She beamed. “Okay, I want a piggyback ride! Oh, and I want you to play music for me on you guitar.”

 

“Ahaha, oh wow…I will play music for you ANY time you ask, any song you want.   You got it.  As for the piggy back…um.  I’ll find a way to make that work, too.  Okay?”

 

“Deal!” she beamed again.  “Give Sha-Mage-y a hug for me when you see him, okay?”

 

“Are you two DONE yet?” Yelled Hunter.  “Or do you not want me to get there while the scent trail is fresh?”

 

“Go, go. I’ll catch up with you guys later!”

 

“Yeah…sure. And again, Jockey. Thank you. For everything.”  He  jogged to catch up with Hunter.

 

..........................................

_End of Chapter Notes:  How on earth do I get this thing to consistently recognize that I always do I tab indent at the start of every new paragraph? I didn't bother trying to fix it for this chapter, because I didn't want to have to go back through this line by line, but..._

_This chapter could have just as easily been called "Jockey saves the day while Sha loses his mind" but that might have been just a bit too much of a spoiler...either way, I did not originally plan for Jockey to be so important to the story, but I'm glad she's here. I couldn't think of any other way to make Hunter voluntarily help._

_God...I have no idea what Hunter is eventually going to ask for when she calls in that favor, but I can't imagine it will be pleasant for Juan._


	3. In which they search for a witch...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunter and Juan set out to find Sha. Can they do it without killing each other?

“You are absolutely SURE that there is something in the square I can track your witchy dude by?” 

 

Juan jumped, startled by the sudden break in the silence. “Yes, I am sure. VERY sure.”

 

“Okay.” She snorted.  “Because if we get there, and there is nothing there, or it’s been covered up or badly muddled and I can’t sort out which scent belongs to Sha-dude…”

 

“He bled all over the pavement, and I can assure you that no survivor is going to voluntarily go near…ahem…’infected blood’, especially while it is still wet.  ‘Cept maybe to mark it off until they can find someone who is willing to clean it up. And you know how long it takes us to get stuff like that done around here…”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, man.  Just as long as you get that I am going to be PISSED if you turn out to be wrong, and we have ta go by your place to pick up something he’s touched…”

 

“We won’t!  geeze….”

 

………..

 

“Hmmph.” Hunter stood over the blood stained pavement.  It was largely undisturbed.  As Juan had assumed, someone did take the time to mark the worst of the splotch off with cones and salvaged caution tape.  “Looks like you were right.”

 

Juan did a mock double take.  “I’m sorry, did you just say I was RIGHT about something?”

 

“Shut up.” 

 

For several minutes, she sat still and sniffed, carefully taking in the scent. After some time, she straightened up.  

 

“Got the trail.” She muttered.  “Should be easy enough to follow.  Come on.”

 

“ Should I be doing anything special, or…?”

 

“Just stay behind me, don’t touch anything, and try to keep up.”

 

…..

 

 

It was probably just chance that Hunter broke the silence first.

 

“So, bright boy,” she said, pausing at one point inspect a bit of pavement, “you do realize that that Eli guy Jockey was talking about is the noodle shop owner, yeah?  The one that she said could fix up Sha-dude’s busted fingers?”

 

“Well, duh.  He had a little hole in the wall joint back…well, back before all of this happened. I’ve gone a few times, and would probably go more if it weren’t such a hassle to get Sha out of the house most days.”

 

She gave him another one of those looks.  “You knew that?  What, you don’t think it’s odd that Jockey suggested you go to a NOODLE COOK for doctoring, or was that just your way of ‘humoring the poor, sad crazy girl?’”

 

“What? How did you reach that…? No, god, no. I wouldn’t do that to Jockey, whatever you want to think of me.  Besides, Eli isn’t just a cook…he’s a retired surgeon, and he seriously knows his shit. “

 

“…okay, how the hell do you know that?  WE…that is, me, Ray and Jordan...had to find out pretty much by accident…”

 

“What kind of accident?”

 

“None of your business!” she snapped, flushing slightly. “But the point is, he doesn’t exactly advertise that…as far as I knew, it was kind of a secret of the cured side of the community that he still did the occasional bit of doctoring on the side.  So how the heck do YOU know?”

 

“First hand!” he said, automatically gesturing to his neck. He then mentally face palmed at the fact that he’d just done that.  “That is…um…well, if you could see me, you’d probably notice the giant fucking scar I have around my throat.”

 

“Wow, a scar, that’s totally unusual and unheard of around here. What of it?”

 

“It’s a ligature mark, from where a Smoker…not your Smoker, one of the others…managed to get me by the neck with his tongue.  Tried to strangle me to death, and came pretty close to succeeding.”

 

“Awww…really?” Hunter snapped her fingers. “If only he’d managed it….”

 

“Yeah, fuck you very much, too.  Anyway, the survivors I was with at the time managed to break me free, but I still couldn’t breathe…the thing had, like, almost crushed my voice box, and my throat was all swollen and shit.  I woulda bought it right then if Eli hadn’t shown up.  He pretty much had to cut a hole in my throat and do this emergency field surgery thing.  It fucked up my vocal chords, but it saved my life.”

 

“Least you can still talk…unlike SOME people.”

 

Juan took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Yeah, yeah, I lucked out, I know…so enough about that. I still wanna know what kind of accident it was that ended with you finding out about Eli…’

 

“Still none of your business…”

 

“Oh come ON!  I told you ‘bout my near death experience, so share!”

 

“And I said buzz off.  Damn you are nosey…”

 

“Really, what was it? I promise I won’t judge…”  his face lit up.  “You mentioned your other hunter buddies…what did one of you get hurt parkouring or something? I bet that was it…which one of you…”

 

“Juan, SHUT IT.”

 

“Oh wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say my name. Whoah, hold up…it was you, wasn’t it?  What happened?  Did you slip on a rail or something? I bet shit like that happens all the time…I mean I KNOW it does, I’ve had some buddies into stuff like that, and they say that even if you are being really careful and know what you are doing…ow, jeeze, I wasn’t saying that you WEREN’T, quit hitting me!”

 

…….

 

The silence lasted longer this time, and was, if anything, more tense and awkward.  Eventually, though, Hunter ended up breaking it again. 

 

“Okay, pinky.  When we find him…yes, WHEN, not if…YOU are going to continue to hang back like the fragile little survivor you are, and let me check on him.  He could still be all relapsy and try to kill you or something…which would be QUITE the loss for everyone, I’m sure…”

 

“Oh, I’m sure you would be just devastated.” Growled Juan under his breath.

 

“Shed a few tears of joy, maybe, but I’m more worried about Jockey, really. You’d BETTER keep your fucking promise to her….but yeah…where was I?… _I_ will check on your little witch guy, and…”

 

“You know, I DO know how to handle Sha when he’s in post relapse state. And I don’t really need this safety lecture, I know better than to get close until I know he’s safe…”

 

“Pfft…yeah, You’ve REALLY shown that you know how to handle this shit. Remind me, how did he got lost in the first place?”

 

“Oh for fucks…it didn’t work out this time, yeah, and I maybe got too ambitious today…”

 

“MAYBE? Down this street, scent turned this way…”

 

“BUT I am NOT wrong in saying that Sha should try and get used to being around other people.  It isn’t healthy for him to just hide from everything all the time…”

 

“Hoooo boy…hold up, scents a bit weird here…”

 

“Besides, he has EVERY RIGHT to go out and do stuff like…like…”

 

“Like a ‘normal human being’?”  Hunter said in an exaggeratedly sweet voice.

 

“Like EVERYONE ELSE is what I was going to say…dude you didn’t lose the trail did you?”

 

“Pfftt, as if…wind just blew it around a bit here, and I need to make sure I’m not being lead off…yeah, got it, this way, I’m sure of it.”

 

“Cool. But like I was saying…he has the right to go out and do shit like anyone else, and he shouldn’t have to be afraid of…of…”

 

“Shit like this happening to him?”

 

“Of everything.  He’s…yeah, he’s kind of a weirdo, but he’s also interesting, and funny, and SMART…seriously, I need a dictionary to keep up with him at times…and…I dunno, it’s just fucked up that I can’t share…I mean that he’s so afraid of going out that other people never get to see those sides of him.”

 

Hunter glanced back at him, an odd expression on her face. “You know, under the layers of sheer DOUCHEBAG, it sounded almost like you actually give a shit about him.”

 

“Wha…what you think I DON’T?  After what I’ve gone through for him tonight, you HONESTLY think I don’t care about Mage-y?!”

 

“I think you are worried about getting in trouble for fucking up and losing him.”

 

“Well, yeah, there is THAT, but that’s just plain old self preservation. I mean, have you MET Doc Lisa?   Do you have any idea what she would DO to me if I let anything happen to…well, any one of you guys?” He shuddered, visions of scalpels and hypodermic needles dancing in his head.   “Death would be the LAST of my worries, trust me.  But no…even if I didn’t have the threat of a CRAZY MAD SCEINTIST looming over me, I’d still want to help him. “

 

“Suuuuure you would.”

 

“Fine, don’t believe me. I don’t care.  I don’t have anything to prove to you or anyone about that…”

 

“Shut up!”

 

“Dude what is you PROBLEM I…”

 

“I said shut it, ass hat, I think we…and by that, I mean _I_ … may have found him.  And don’t move.”  She stood absolutely still, and sniffed the air carefully.  “Yeah, he’s close.  Really close.” She cocked her head slightly, as if listening for something, and sniffed even more deeply. 

 

“Well?” said Juan finally.

 

“What part of ‘Shut it’ aren’t you getting?”

 

“The part where I don’t get what you are even listening for…I mean, you have his scent, so…”

 

“Breathing and a heartbeat, duh.”

 

“You hear heartbeats?”

 

“Well, yeah, duh.  All the better to track you with and shit…”

 

“You can hear MY heartbeat? Like, right now?”

 

“Heh…and the way it’s going right now, you’d think you were a scared rabbit…”

 

“I think I was happier not knowing that.”

 

“Tough.   Now…and don’t make me say this again…SHUT IT.”  She walked, slowly, almost silently, until she reached the end of a darkened alleyway. Frowning, she leaned in partway and sniffed deeply.  “Here.” She said after a moment.  “I’m sure of it.”

 

....................................

 

_End of Chapter Notes:  I could write an entire story of just these two ragging on each other, I swear._

_Eli and Yan are expies of Guy Eldoon and Yanni Yogi, of Ace Attorney 4 and 1 respectively.  Given that Juan is already a shameless expy of Juan Corrida, it only felt right to make some more from the same series to keep him company.  I haven't tagged them as of this posting because the scene where they actually feature has not been finished...yet._


	4. ...and what happens when they find him.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The summary is in the chapter title.

Anxiously…and more than a little reluctantly…Juan waited at the entrance to the closed off alleyway.

 

He knew that Hunter was right about being cautious; cured witches were known to be at their most dangerous when coming out of a bad relapse. It did not always happen. When it did happen, the amount of time this period lasted could vary a lot depending on the day and the witch, but the fact remained that after an exceptionally bad episode, those with this strain of infection tended to be vulnerable to follow up attacks.  These tended to be worse than the initial relapse, as they were harder for the cured in question to snap out of afterwards.  Worse, because they had already used up a lot of energy the first time around…and because the relapsed state made them lose all normal self-preservation instincts…they were even more prone to injuring themselves than normal. 

 

You could make the argument that the relapsing witch herself (or himself) was the one who was the most endangered at times like these.  Not that this was likely to make much of a difference to the survivor who was unfortunate enough, or foolish enough, to trigger them. 

 

Moreover, cured were far less likely to be set off by other cured. 

 

(The only real exceptions to this rule were Tanks, or commons. Anything could set off a Tank, and commons just tended to be the most dangerous in crowds, forming spontaneous hordes.  The difference was that commons at least usually had to also have a survivor around to trigger a full on group relapse.)

 

Even without that fact, Juan was not at all ashamed to admit that Hunter was stronger than him, and better able to handle the manic strength of an attacking witch than he would ever be.

 

True, his ex-girlfriend’s girlfriend was a violent, stubborn, and incredibly dangerous thug.  Yeah, she was a huge risk taker who was more than a little prone to testing limits.  Sure, she was a huge prankster who seemed to take a perverse delight in tormenting cured witches, especially when it would cause the most trouble for their helpers. So she was one of the most petty and infuriating people he’d ever had the misfortune to meet in his entire life.

 

(Of course this was a TOTALLY OBJECTIVE summation of Hunter’s character, based on entirely unbiased observation and study, thank you very much.   Juan was absolutely not letting the fact that Smoker was dating the hoodie wearing little maniac color his judgment of her.  At all.

 

But even with all of that, he knew full well that Hunter didn’t lack a basic level of empathy.  Juan had never seen anything to make him believe that she was cruel enough or foolish enough to do anything bad to someone who was truly hurt. Not even to get back at a third party. 

 

Besides, he also felt confident that Hunter would never go that far for risk of Charger finding out, and getting pissed about it. And even if he hadn’t been sure of all of that, he was positive that the idea of having Juan in her debt was enough to keep Hunter honest.

 

No, he was sure that he could trust the traceusse to help Sha.  That wasn’t the problem.

 

It had been almost 4 hours since the accident at that point, and it was getting increasingly cold, especially now that the sun was down.  Thanks to their screwy metabolisms and the peculiarities of their infection strain, witches never bothered with much clothing as a rule.  They just didn’t feel the cold all that much, and most of them just didn’t see the point given the fact that anything they wore could easily just end up getting destroyed during one of their witchy-fits. 

 

Even Sha, who was uncommonly body-shy, mostly made do with a light pair of pants, a tanktop, a lightweight blanket (or, in the case of today, an equally light makeshift cloak/drape/tunic thing, a few strategic clip and stitches strategically employed so he wouldn’t have to hold the thing on with his hands all day.), and a pair of sandals.  He was also painfully thin, and didn’t retain heat well, especially when immobile. That was on TOP of a worrying amount of blood loss, which would make it even harder for him to retain heat.

 

The possibility of Sha getting sick from this was very real, and very worrisome.

 

This was FAR from the only concern Juan had at the moment; who knows what all could have happened to Sha while he was alone and vulnerable?

 

More than anything right then, though, was the plain fact that the musician had yet to hear Sha’s voice, though he could hear Hunter talking softly to him. Surely he should have come to by now?

 

“Hey…uh. Juan?” Hunter called back to him after some time. She sounded uncharacteristically worried.  “…Um. I don’t know if this means anything but…um. Okay.  He’s awake, I’m sure of it, but…he’s not talking to me. Or responding. Like. At all.”

 

“FUCK.” Juan didn’t wait for her to say anything else, he just ran into the alley and crouched down next to the pair. If Hunter objected to this, he didn’t hear. 

 

Sha was more or less awake, as Hunter had said, and even partially sitting up. His eyes were open, too, but there was no light in them.  He was staring dully down at Juan’s jacket, which he was clutching tightly in his mangled hands. It was horribly stained with blood from his right hand; it was still seeping, oozing through the filthy, ragged bandages.  He had blood around his mouth, too, though Juan was too distracted to think about where that might have come from. 

 

“No…no. Nononooo…Mage-y…” Juan grabbed Sha by the biceps and squeezed him gently. The cured’s thin arms were cold to the touch.  He didn’t look up.

 

The knot in Juan’s stomach tightened. “Mage-y, no…no…look at me, please, please, say something, don’t do this…”

 

Sha did not respond.

 

It was too much for Juan.  Half screaming, half sobbing, he SHOOK the red-head, pleading, begging, ORDERING him to answer.  He completely ignored Hunter’s attempts to make him stop, to quiet him down.  Juan could not help it. It was just too much…too much like back then.  Sha was acting too much like how he acted after Tory died.

 

“DAMMIT SHA DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME AGAIN.  ANSWER ME OR SO HELP ME GOD I WILL BURN EVERY LAST ONE OF YOUR BORING ASS TEXT BOOKS, AND I WILL MAKE YOU WATCH WHILE I DO IT.”

 

Something Juan said or did must have gotten through to Sha. Maybe he wasn’t as far gone as he’d been the last time, or maybe it was simply enough to threaten his books. Either way, he blinked, shuddered, and finally looked up. 

 

“…Juan?” he said, after another agonizing pause.

 

“Y-yeah.” Under any other circumstance, he would have been tempted to point out the fact that Sha had omitted the ‘Mr.’, but he was still too shaken up for that.

 

Sha stared at him for another long moment.  There was an odd look on his face.  Trembling, he reached out (with his less injured left hand), and prodded Juan’s chest cautiously.  “Pink?” He murmured, almost too softly to be heard.   He prodded Juan a few more times, in an exploratory fashion.  The light was slowly coming back into his eyes. 

 

“You’re…you are real?” he said in a louder voice.  “You are…really here?”

 

“I was the last time I checked…jesus fuck, Mage-y, do you have any clue how much you just…”

 

Sha effectively cut him off before he could finish that thought by wailing loudly, and throwing his arms around him.  “MR. JUAN! MR. JUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!”  He cried, pressing his face into Juan’s chest. 

 

Before the startled musician could even begin to react to this, the tiny red head stiffened and shoved away.  “No...no what are you doing here, why did you come after me, you should NOT have come after me.”

 

“…ex…excuse me, WHAT…?”

 

Sha tried to stand, but his legs were still too stiff to hold him, so he ended up scooting away awkwardly. “You should not have found me. Go away.   Say you could not find me.  Or that I was beyond help.  Just…Just…”

 

“Are you KIDDING ME?  No, dammit, NO, I am NOT leaving you here like this, are you out of your mind? Do you have ANY clue what…”

 

“Stay back!  Please understand, you have done ENOUGH.  Why are you still trying? Why are you still HERE, go!” Sha kept backing up until he hit a wall. He stared, wide eyed…not in a relapsing sort of way, but..

 

“….No. No, dammit NO. FUCK, MAGE-Y SERIOUSLY WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL.  I…what is bringing this on? Are you really that angry at me about earlier?”

 

“Angry?....No, no why on earth would I be…”

 

“Am I scaring you?  Are you trying to make a point? Or is this your idea of a bad joke?  What the HELL is this about?”

 

“No, no, and no, and I Should NOT have to be telling you any…”

 

“Oh for CHRIST’S SAKE, then what IS this about?  And I SWEAR ON….on EVERYTHING that if you try to tell me that it should be OBVIOUS what it is, I’ll…I’ll…I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’LL DO YET, but in CASE it isn’t OBVIOUS TO YOU, I HONESTLY HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU ARE GOING ON ABOUT! So EXPLAIN YOURSELF, THIS INSTANT, AND QUIT LEAVING OUT THE SO CALLED OBVIOUS BITS OR SO HELP ME…”

 

“I thought you were DEAD.  I thought I had KILLED YOU.” wailed Sha.

 

“…what? Why did you…?”

 

“Do I REALLY have to spell it all out for you?” snapped Sha, as he held out the bloody jacket.  “I woke up, with…with THIS over my head, and…and I did see YOU anywhere, and…and I knew I’d relapsed and I couldn’t…could NOT remember anything that happened after…I did not know what I had been doing at ALL.”

 

“It didn’t occur to you to ask…”

 

“ASK WHO, PRECISELY?”

 

“Oh…umm…good…good point.  But…okay, first off, chill out, because you did NOT kill anyone.  I didn’t let you…”

 

“Then where did this blood come from?!”

 

“That’s all your own blood, dude.” Called Hunter.  “Trust me, I know. Hi, by the way.”

 

“It is?” Sha looked at his hands again.  “Huh…guess I am bleeding a fair bit…”

 

“You just now noticed that?”  Juan was gaping.  “Just…never mind. Just come here…”

 

“NO!” Sha flattened himself against the wall. “NO! You still don’t…do NOT get it. I am not SAFE.  We got lucky this time, yes, and no one was killed by me…or seriously injured, I guess?...but it could STILL happen.  I might kill someone, entirely without meaning to, without…without knowing I am doing it. I might kill YOU next time and…I could not…I do not want that to happen. I really do not want that to happen.”

 

Juan felt like he’d been winded.  “Mage-y…no listen.  Listen, seriously. You…you really.” He sighed.  “Oh damn…you were right…a lot of that SHOULD have been obvious. But Mage-y, listen…cutting yourself off from everyone…from me…that isn’t the answer.  Besides…besides…Oh HELL.  Mage-y…I was the one who fucked up today, not you.”

 

Behind him, Hunter’s jaw dropped.

 

Sha shook his head.  “That…that’s very kind of you…but if I had been paying attention to where I was going…then…”

 

“YOU were walking on a public sidewalk, where you have as much right to go unharmed as anyone else.  YOU did not ask some asshole to come up and stomp on you while you were down, and frankly you shouldn’t have to worry about getting stomped on even if you didn’t have a freaking medical condition that makes you overreact to danger.” Juan winced.  “And I repeat…I’m the one who fucked up here. If I’d been doing my job right, that never would have happened. I stopped paying attention to you.”

 

“You were talking to a friend…you have a right to talk to your friends…”

 

“I was out there with YOU.  I was making you do something you didn’t even WANT to do in the first place because…uggh nevermind why now….but the point is, you were HANDLING it. You were uncomfortable and unhappy, but you were coping VERY well with the crowd.  And if I’d…if I’d just agreed to leave when you asked…instead of staying to chat with someone who kept calling you ‘That THING.”…oh, and for the record, she’s not my friend.  Not anymore.”

 

“Mr. Juan! No!”

 

“You didn’t hear the way she was talking about you after you ran off! She didn’t want me to come after you!”

 

“Well, she was understandably scared, so I do not blame her! Oh, Mr. Juan, you should NOT be alienating fellow survivors on MY behalf…”

 

“SCREW my fellow survivors if they are going to treat you like dirt.”

 

“Mr. Juan, no. “  Sha put his head in his hands and yanked at his hair.  “Oh no, I’ve caused you so much trouble today…I lost you a friend…”

 

“Please, I did that to my damn self…”

 

“I’ve gotten myself injured again…”

 

“No, that ASSHOLE injured you, and I was the fucktard who sat by and let it happen and why the hell are YOU sorry…”

 

“I bled on your jacket…”

 

“The hell…why would you even apologize for that?  Hell, why are you apologizing for BEING INJURED anyway, that is just…”

 

“Why…why are you doing this?  Why do you put up with me at all?  I know I am boring, and quiet, and I never want to do anything you want to do, and you cannot introduce me to your friends and…and…all the stuff you do for me every single day…and I’m STILL dangerous and I just don’t…I don’t know.  Why do you do this?  Why haven’t you come to your senses?  Why haven’t you given up?  WHY do you put up with me?”

 

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, YOU IDIOT.”

 

The shock was enough to actually put a stop to Sha’s tearful questions; all he could do was stare, cheeks reddening slightly under the greyish tint of his skin, mouth opening and closing silently.  Juan was in a similar state.  His mouth struggled to form coherent words as he mentally reviewed what he’d just said.  It was not at all what he’d intended to say.  Not even close. He’d actually meant it, completely, but he had never intended to say it…

 

‘ _Oh crap oh crap oh crap, why doesn’t my life have a rewind/erase function. I want a redo on…well, this entire day, but I will settle for a redo on the last few minutes…oh god what do I say how do I recover from this WHAT DO I SAY._ ’

 

Sha still hadn’t said anything either, though, not even to acknowledge Juan’s spectacular word vomit. 

 

 _‘Maybe I can just sort of…go on like I never said it at all_?’

 

“Because…” He stammered, before swallowing heavily and continuing, “because I’m not the kind of jerk who just GIVES UP on people like that. Hell, it would make more sense for you to give up on ME right now…like I said, I am the one who REALLY fucked up here.  YOU were doing great.”

 

“I was rude. I was not even trying to mask how much I wanted to leave…” Sha sounded a bit…breathy and winded, but the frantic hysterics and tearfulness that had colored his earlier speech was gone.  Mostly gone. It was significantly reduced, at any rate. Progress of a sort.  And thank GOD, he seemed to be equally willing to pretend Juan’s outburst had never happened.

 

“But you were not freaking out. You were DEALING with it, which is remarkable. Hell, you were keeping it together even after you fell, and I KNOW that had to have hurt.”

 

“But…”

 

“No buts about it!  Look, stop arguing with me about this, and quit apologizing for shit you had no control over. You didn’t do anything WRONG.”

 

Sha’s mouth twisted in an odd way, and Juan knew, ever before the witch spoke…he just KNEW that he was about to make some petty, nitpicky little observation…

 

“Nothing WRONG?  I am to understand you do not define ‘attempted killing’ as wrong?”

 

Yep. It never failed. “Oh for fucks sake, Mage-y…”

 

“Okay, for the sake of argument, let us say that the lack of malicious intent counted for something in this case.  Legally speaking, it would most likely still have counted as manslaughter…which might be mitigated by an insanity plea, or a argument of self defense, though in the latter case, even you have to acknowledge that death is a disproportionate retribution for what may well have been a case of accidental errr…ummm…hand stompage…in any case, intentional or not, how on earth is killing not wrong?”

 

“ARRRGH…you know full well that I MEANT it wasn’t your FAULT. Besides you didn’t actually kill ANYONE, so you STILL didn’t do anything WRONG.”

 

“But I attempted to, intentional or not. And I lost control of myself, you cannot tell me that is right.  Moreover, if you MEANT that I was not at fault, then that is what you should have said. “

 

“For the first point, shut up.  For the second point, what does it matter if I don’t use the EXACT RIGHT WORD if you know what I actually mean when I say it?  And don’t even try to tell me you didn’t know what I meant, either. “

 

“Correct word usage is important, Mr. Juan. Lazy vocabulary is the death of clear communication.”

 

“Clear communication?  Excuse me…get over here, would you, I need to look at your hands…are you, of all people lecturing ME about clear communication when you…”

 

They continued on in that vein for some time, jumping occasionally to different, equally unimportant topics.  By unspoken, mutual agreement, heavier subject matter was, at least for the time being, forbidden.  They bickered about word usage, household chores, movies they both remembered, whether or not pink was really a manly color, and, if that last fact was true, whether or not it really said anything about Sha that Jockey’s pink sweater would only clash with the witch’s red hair, or even if it would necessarily fit Sha any better than it fit Juan. 

 

(“She’s in better shape than you, it would hang off of you like a SACK...at least on me it accentuates my muscles” “Oh yes,  Mr. Juan, you are SO incredibly… ripped, I believe is the generally accepted slang?”   “…yeah, never use the word ‘ripped’ in that context ever again, please.”)

 

It was placeholder language and they both knew it…a way to fill the silence, and in their own odd way, reassure each other that they were still okay.

 

Juan assessed the damage to Sha’s hands as they talked, a convenient excuse to make physical contact.  He grimaced when he saw the fresh, deep, bleeding bite marks…the source of the blood around Sha’s mouth…but refrained from commenting as that fell under the heading of forbidden topics.  Instead, he pulled Sha into a brief, wordless hug, before going right back to the petty argument, which had by then evolved into an overly involved talk about the general merits of pop music.

 

(Juan’s stance: “What merits?” Sha’s: “You are a music snob, Mr. Juan.”)

 

They were so wrapped up in this business, that it was some time before either of them noticed that Hunter had slipped away, or even remembered that she had been there in the first place. 

……………………..

 

Hunter hated feeling conflicted, and she absolutely despised uncertainty.  If she had her way, the world would be divided solidly into two categories: people who were alright by her, and people who needed a good punching.  It was an easy system, a workable system, a flexible system even. Hell, there were more times than she could count where all the people in the latter category needed to be promoted to the former category was the punching they so richly deserved. Whoever said that violence was never the answer was clearly in need of the kind of therapy that only a fist to the gut could provide.

 

Fortunately for them, Hunter was very obliging in this regard.

 

Hunter clinched her fist tightly, and jabbed at the air in front of her.

 

She had been certain…so certain…that Juan had belonged solidly, and immovably in the second category.  He was the jerk who broke Smoker’s heart and made her feel wretched about herself, all under the pretense of trying to help her improve herself.

 

Feh…more like trying to force her to change into HIS idea of a better person by telling her that she was ugly and unlikeable.  As if that kind of thing helped ANYONE.  If that was the way he went about ‘helping’ her, it was no wonder that Smoker never called him first, and never opened up to him.)

 

For that crime alone, Juan had MORE than earned his position on Hunter’s shit list, and there was no number of solid jabs that would ever serve to make him alright with her.

 

Hunter hated feeling conflicted the same way she hated uncertainty; it was too much like feeling helpless, and Hunter was the sort of person who was prepared to gnaw her own limbs off before admitting to any level of helplessness.

 

The fact that Juan was now making her feel conflicted and uncertain was not winning him any points.  How dare he...how DARE he act like a reasonable and decent human being towards that pitiful little witch guy?  (Hunter's fist tightened unconsciously.  She'd smelled the distress on Sha, and, damn him, it had turned out that Juan had NOT been exaggerating how badly injured the little guy was.  If she ever bumped into the asshole who stomped on the skinny red head...well, there was only one way to deal with guys like that, wasn't there?)

 

And what was worse...just when she'd decided that he was the sort of person who never really took responsibility for shit he did...he goes and apologizes to Shadude for messing up. He didn't even really mention the fact that it was someone else who had hurt the little guy...he just said he'd been wrong and apologized.

 

He had SOME NERVE.

 

Where did he get off, being the bigger person like that? What was his deal?

Why could he admit he was wrong when it came to that Sha guy, but not when it came to Smoker?

           

And he HAD to be wrong about Smoker.  He just had to be.  Because if any of the shit he'd said was in any way true...

 

Hunter shook her head hard, and walked faster.  Her foot brushed against a tin can, and it rattled slightly as it rolled away. Listening carefully for it, she aimed and punted it down the street, smiling slightly at the sound of the echoes as it clattered metallically on the sidewalk.

 

No, he was WRONG about Smoker.  The fact that he was being so nice to Shadude probably just meant he had some kind of agenda. That HAD to be it.  Juan was just keeping the little weirdo around to...to feed his ego or something. Or because he had some kind of savior complex.  Same difference, right? The creep had to have someone he could feel superior towards. That was probably it, really...it would go a long way towards explaining why he would want to date Smoker when he clearly considered himself to be better than her.  (Which he wasn't.)

 

Feh...the jerk probably got off to having someone he looked down on to 'rescue'...

 

Hunter stopped suddenly, and mentally reviewed the conversation she had unintentionally overheard.

 

Sha had asked Juan, in so many words, why the survivor stuck around. And the creep had answered...quite loudly...

 

Hunter's grin could have easily reviled the Cheshire Cat's. "Because you 'love' him, huh. Hah...that creep really IS getting off to this.  God, I KNEW it...and that means...oh. OH.  AHAHAHAHAHAHA oh wow."

 

Her convictions reaffirmed, Hunter jogged home with a much lighter heart. Wait till Smoker heard about THIS.

 

…………

 

_End of Chapter Notes:_

_-If you are wondering who the Tory character Juan was thinking about while trying to shake Sha out of his stupor...please go read "Words and Gestures."  (I swear, one of these days, I will write the story that explains exactly what happened to him...)_

_-and here, I can finally at least partially justify my pairing tags.  For the record, Juan isn't so much confused about his feelings about Sha...I wanted to make it very clear that even though he hadn't MEANT to blurt out a love confession, that didn't mean he didn't mean what he said.  It's more that he's....he's seen himself as straight for so long that he is having a hard time acknowledging the bits of himself that don't fit that view.  (if I ever get around to writing some of the ideas I've kicked around with Zarla about Juan's backstory, then the sheer irony of this whole situation will be more apparent.)_

_-I have no idea how Sha and Juan got so far off topic during their little bicker fight, but I seriously love the idea of them ~~flirting~~ calming themselves down like this…by having goofy pointless arguments.  Also, I want you guys to picture Juan striking a muscle man pose while joking about how manly Jockey’s sweater makes him look, and Sha answering him in a sort of tight, stiff sort of way that means he’s having to force himself not to laugh.  If that mental image amuses you HALF as much as it amuses me, then I have done my job right._

_-Hunter is going to have a field day with this.  If anyone thinks that Hunter's being kind of mean about this, keep in mind that Juan's EXACT reaction to finding out that Smoker was dating Hunter was to immediately--and loudly--conclude that THAT'S why he and Smoker didn't work.  It was all because she was a total lesbian and it had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with anything he may have said or done to her while they were dating. Needless to say, neither ladies have forgiven him for this, and he has had yet to see the flaw in his reasoning._

 


End file.
